Search results for

On January 12 2007, the Court of Appeal handed down its judgment in a long-running dispute between Special Effects and L'Oreal as to whether the same grounds could be adopted in infringement or invalidity proceedings after they had already been unsuccessfully deployed in an opposition action. The High Court had held that once a mark had overcome an opposition and been accepted for registration, the opponent was estopped from attacking the mark a second time either by infringement or invalidation proceedings. This decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal, which held that Registry proceedings did not involve any cause of action which could form the basis of an estoppel and that the Trade Marks Act 1994, which provided for the co-existence of both opposition and invalidation actions, meant that opposition actions were by their nature non-final.

Sweden's legislators and judicial authorities are facing a delicate problem in connection with file sharing – that is, with uploading and downloading of copyrighted material from the internet. The problem is that the existing legislation regulating the issue is ignored by the vast majority of people whom it is principally intended to govern.

Beginning July 1 2007, three important changes to the Korean Patent Act will become effective.

In the decision of the Supreme Court (SC) issued on February 2 2007 in McDonald's Corporation v Macjoy Fastfood Corporation, the SC employed the dominancy test to affirm the decision of the Intellectual Property Office (IPOPhil) that the predominant features of the McDonald's marks (namely its corporate logo known as the golden arches or M design, McDonald's, McChicken, MacFries, BigMac, McDo, McSpaghetti, McSnack, and Mc), are the "M" logo design, and the prefixes "Mc" and "Mac", and found confusing similarity between the McDonald's marks and the opposed Macjoy and device mark, especially since both are used on the same products falling under Classes 29 and 30.

About one year ago Russian Customs drastically intensified its efforts in intercepting the illegal transit of goods across the border. Spurred by the World Customs Organization, the Russian Customs will make the year 2007 the year of combating counterfeiting. There are many reasons for that. The Russian Customs acknowledge that intellectual property rights infringement is the most frequent occurrence among economic offences. According to the Customs, the most frequently stopped goods at the border are confectionery, sports clothes and shoes, perfumes and household chemistry. This means that trade mark infringement is the biggest problem. Competing with trade marks are copyrighted products, such as DVDs and Cds. Piracy of videocassettes is becoming less frequent due to the dwindling demand for video tape gadgetry.

The New Zealand government is proposing significant amendments to the Copyright Act 1994 (the Act) with the Copyright (New Technologies and Performer's Rights) Amendment Bill (the Bill).

In the case of SAP (M) Sdn Bhd & Anor v I World HRM Net Sdn Bhd [2006] 2 MLJ 678 an application for an interlocutory injunction was made by SAP, the German software company, and its local exclusive distributor after they had sued the defendants for copyright infringement. The defendants had an individual end user licence agreement for the SAP R/3 software. The plaintiffs had alleged that the defendants had breached the licence agreement by providing service bureau applications to third parties without the plaintiffs' consent and by reproducing and downloading the software on computers/servers of third parties.

Before the Linkage Regulation in Mexico, the health authorities granted marketing authorizations for pharmaceuticals when the applicant complied with the regulatory requirements, without reviewing possible violations of patent rights. In short, marketing authorizations granted in the past for patented pharmaceutical products to non-authorized third parties were government authorizations to infringe patents.

The German Federal Supreme Court (BGH) recently issued a decision (Haftetikett), which significantly increases the legal burden on an employer to effectively claim a patent right originating from an employee's invention.

An Italian court recently issued a long-awaited decision in which it recognized copyright protection for designs (a chair and a lamp). This is a landmark decision.